Georgia's Silver Award for Academic Achievement: Highest Percentage of Students At and Above Grade Level

In the video podcast below is Dr. Tyson's presentation at the dinner celebration. He discusses each achievement and ends the presentation by answering the question, "Where do we go from here?". The goal he sets before us at Mabry: "In order to meet the unfettered demands of the global job market, we need to turn school on its head by changing school from an information distribution system to a collection of collaborative knowledge fabrication systems, and let's start that shift here at Mabry." Listen to find out what he means by this significant challenge.

If you were unable to attend our celebration, enjoy this "virtual celebration!"

To view a list of our special guests for the evening, click the image above.

The podcast below is a video podcast (which, once downloaded on a Mac or Windows machine, requires iTunes 6.x or Quicktime 7.x).

Georgia's Silver Award for Academic Achievement: Highest Percentage of Students At and Above Grade Level

In the audio-only podcast below is Dr. Tyson's presentation at the dinner celebration. He discusses each achievement and ends the presentation by answering the question, "Where do we go from here?". The goal he sets before us at Mabry: "In order to meet the unfettered demands of the global job market, we need to turn school on its head by changing school from an information distribution system to a collection of collaborative knowledge fabrication systems, and let's start that shift here at Mabry." Listen to find out what he means by this significant challenge.

If you were unable to attend our celebration, enjoy this "virtual celebration!"

To view a list of our special guests for the evening, click the image above.

November 16, 2005

Best School in the World (VP)

Yesterday I went to 6 different classes with 1 simple question for the students: "If you were to walk into the best school in the entire world, what would you see?" I told the students that I wanted thoughtful answers, as in answers that are full of thought. I gave no suggestions, no ideas, no context whatsoever. I simply asked them the question.

I must admit to being stunned by the depth of their answers. Our students will tell us what an excellent educational setting is if we only ask. They get it.

November 08, 2005

Les petits poissions dans l’eau

“Les petits poisons dans l’eau” is a French poem. The title means “The Little Fish in the Water.” This poem tells us that the little fish swim as well as the big fish. Mabry French students use poetry to work on pronunciation and fluency.

The music for this Podcast was selected and edited by Mabry's French Podcast Team with songs from Bizet's "Carmen" and Disney's "Under the Sea."

Page d’écriture

Page d’écriture is poem by Jacques Prévert, a very famous French poet. The title of the poem means "Page of Writing." French students from Mabry’s feeder high school, Lassiter, are the voices of the teacher, student and narrator in the poem. The student in the poem is bored with her lesson and upon seeing a bird out the window of her classroom calls to the bird to play with her. This Podcast will be used to work on students’ oral fluency.

The music you hear at the beginning and the end of this Podcast is from Bizet's opera, "Carmen."

November 07, 2005

What's It Like to Move to a New School

Moving to a new school is really tough. Being a middle school student is tough. Put the two together? No way!

In this podcast we explore the stories of five of our new students in 7th and 8th grades. They moved from near and far. Most planned their move, but one 8th grade girl was forced to move unexpectedly because of the tragedy of Katrina. She and her family lost everything but found a wonderful school. This podcast contains the stories they told and the advice they give to students who move. They also share their thoughts on how students can welcome people to our school family.

PE Department Gets Psyched for Film Festival with Frisbees (VP)

Every year the PE Department has produced an outstanding award-winning movie for the Film Festival and has taken home an Oscar. What's even more amazing is that each year the movie team has a different Coach for their sponsor! (No pressure here for this year's sponsor, Coach Spannagel!...)

Well, like any great group of coaches, you warm up the team before the big game. That's exactly what Coach McCall did with this video podcast! The students got to start practicing their technology skills as the PE Department gears up for their BIG movie project.

Our students recently finished their Ultimate Frisby unit, and Coach McCall had the camera crew working, followed by the video software editing team. The students put together this video podcast that shows off their learning new frisbee stunts and preparing for the final round of Ultimate Frisbee.

Who said PE couldn't integrate technology into their curriculum?! Our PE Department is at the top of their game!

Social Studies Projects (part 2) (VP)

Each of our sixth grade Social Studies students typically does a report on each student's family's geographic, religious, and cultural heritage. These reports have then been presented to the class as a wonderful way to highlight family heritage and values and to welcome students into a greater understanding and appreciation of the rich geographic diversity that constitutes our larger school community.

Last year the Social Studies teachers decided to use digital storytelling to make this project come alive. Students scan in pictures and take pictures of family artifacts and then combine them in video celebrating their family. This year we are sharing two of those family stories with our larger classroom, the whole world. Hopefully the friends and relatives of these children, friends and relatives who live all over the world, can see these students' work. Enjoy these student-created stories of ancestry, rich heritage, and connectedness.

This project was created by Julie. The project in the post below was created by Abby. Enjoy the work of these two 6th graders.

Social Studies Projects (part 1) (VP)

Each of our sixth grade Social Studies students typically does a report on each student's family's geographic, religious, and cultural heritage. These reports have then been presented to the class as a wonderful way to highlight family heritage and values and to welcome students into a greater understanding and appreciation of the rich geographic diversity that constitutes our larger school community.

Last year the Social Studies teachers decided to use digital storytelling to make this project come alive. Students scan in pictures and take pictures of family artifacts and then combine them in video celebrating their family. This year we are sharing two of those family stories with our larger classroom, the whole world. Hopefully the friends and relatives of these children, friends and relatives who live all over the world, can see these students' work. Enjoy these student-created stories of ancestry, rich heritage, and connectedness.

This project was created by Abby. The project in the post above was created by Julie. Enjoy the work of these two 6th graders.

November 03, 2005

Kid Capacity: Podcast with Chelsea

Georgia law now requires every student in middle school read 25 books in a given school year. A book is considered 150 pages of printed text, and that's still a lot of reading. One of our students, Chelsea, has already read a total of 83 books. She got started this summer and has carefully documented her reading using our school reading logs. Obviously she is an avid reader.

I wanted to recognize her outstanding achievement and thought our Podcast Central listeners would want to hear from this sweet little 7th grade girl.

November 02, 2005

First Nine Weeks Student Art Work (VP)

We love to post student work at Mabry, and our Art teacher probably puts more student work up on bulletin boards around the school than anyone else. The work our students produce is so beautiful, she eagerly shares it with everyone in our school community.

But why not share it to a much broader audience? This first video podcast of student art work at our school is posted to our new Worldwide Bulletin Board. Now our students can share their work with their friends and relatives all over the world!

Spanish Podcast Debut

Señora Rivera's 8th grade Spanish students have been busy at work this year as they begin to learn the rich culture and language of the Spanish-speaking people. In addition to their studies, several of our Spanish students have been working on assembling podcasts from their studies. Brandon put the finishing touches on this, the first Mabry Spanish podcast.

November 01, 2005

National Junior Honor Society Induction Ceremony

On September 23, 2005, Mabry Middle School held an induction ceremony for our chapter of the National Junior Honor Society. Parents attended this special event in which over 60 of our 7th and 8th grade students accepted the oath of Leadership, Scholarship, Character, Citizenship, and Service. The ceremony was followed by a reception for parents and students. This was a special event in the history of our school as this is our first group of inductees into our newly-formed chapter.

This short podcast illuminates the high ideas of the society to which the students made their pledge.

2005 Best Picture Category (VP)

We simply can't pass up an opportunity for our student's amazing work to be made available for everyone in the world to view on their video iPods. Therefore, we are posting a video podcast of the five student movies and student interviews from the 2005 Fourth Annual Mabry Film Festival's Best Picture Category.